Analysis of The dirge of jephthah'S daughter:sung by the virgins
Robert Herrick 1591 (London) – 1674 (Dean Prior)
O thou, the wonder of all days!
O paragon, and pearl of praise!
O Virgin-martyr, ever blest
Above the rest
Of all the maiden-train! We come,
And bring fresh strewings to thy tomb.
Thus, thus, and thus, we compass round
Thy harmless and unhaunted ground;
And as we sing thy dirge, we will
The daffadil,
And other flowers, lay upon
The altar of our love, thy stone.
Thou wonder of all maids, liest here,
Of daughters all, the dearest dear;
The eye of virgins; nay, the queen
Of this smooth green,
And all sweet meads, from whence we get
The primrose and the violet.
Too soon, too dear did Jephthah buy,
By thy sad loss, our liberty;
His was the bond and cov'nant, yet
Thou paid'st the debt;
Lamented Maid! he won the day:
But for the conquest thou didst pay.
Thy father brought with him along
The olive branch and victor's song;
He slew the Ammonites, we know,
But to thy woe;
And in the purchase of our peace,
The cure was worse than the disease.
For which obedient zeal of thine,
We offer here, before thy shrine,
Our sighs for storax, tears for wine;
And to make fine
And fresh thy hearse-cloth, we will here
Four times bestrew thee every year.
Receive, for this thy praise, our tears;
Receive this offering of our hairs;
Receive these crystal vials, fill'd
With tears, distill'd
From teeming eyes; to these we bring,
Each maid, her silver filleting,
To gild thy tomb; besides, these cauls,
These laces, ribbons, and these falls,
These veils, wherewith we use to hide
The bashful bride,
When we conduct her to her groom;
All, all we lay upon thy tomb.
No more, no more, since thou art dead,
Shall we e'er bring coy brides to bed;
No more, at yearly festivals,
We, cowslip balls,
Or chains of columbines shall make,
For this or that occasion's sake.
No, no; our maiden pleasures be
Wrapt in the winding-sheet with thee;
'Tis we are dead, though not i' th' grave;
Or if we have
One seed of life left, 'tis to keep
A Lent for thee, to fast and weep.
Sleep in thy peace, thy bed of spice,
And make this place all paradise;
May sweets grow here, and smoke from hence
Fat frankincense;
Let balm and cassia send their scent
From out thy maiden-monument.
May no wolf howl, or screech owl stir
A wing about thy sepulchre!
No boisterous winds or storms come hither,
To starve or wither
Thy soft sweet earth; but, like a spring,
Love keep it ever flourishing.
May all shy maids, at wonted hours,
Come forth to strew thy tomb with flowers;
May virgins, when they come to mourn,
Male-incense burn
Upon thine altar; then return,
And leave thee sleeping in thy urn.
Scheme | AABBXC DDEEXX FGHHIX XJIIKK LLMMXX NNNNFG OOPPQL ARSSCC TTXRUU JJXXVV WWXXXX YFYYQQ ZZX1 1 1 |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11010111 1100111 11010101 0101 11010111 0111111 11011101 110011 01111111 01 01010101 010110111 11011111 11010101 01110101 1111 01111111 0100100 1111111 111110100 1101011 11101 01011101 11010111 11011101 01010101 1101011 1111 000101101 01111001 110100111 11010111 10111111 0111 01111111 11111001 011111101 0111001101 01110101 1101 11011111 110101 11110111 11010011 1111111 0101 11010101 11110111 11111111 111011111 11110100 1101 1111011 111111 111010101 10010111 1111111111 1111 11111111 01111101 10111111 0111110 11110111 110 110100111 11110100 11111111 010111 1100111110 11110 11111101 11110100 11111110 111111110 11011111 1011 01110101 01110011 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,484 |
Words | 470 |
Sentences | 18 |
Stanzas | 13 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 |
Lines Amount | 78 |
Letters per line (avg) | 25 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 151 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 36 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:23 min read
- 50 Views
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"The dirge of jephthah'S daughter:sung by the virgins" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/31385/the-dirge-of-jephthah%27s-daughter%3Asung-by-the-virgins>.
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